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    <title>ShellCheck: SC2123 – `PATH` is the shell search path. Use another name.</title>
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    <h1>SC2123 – ShellCheck Wiki</h1>
    <a href="https://github.com/koalaman/shellcheck/wiki/SC2123">See this page on GitHub</a>
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    <h2
id="path-is-the-shell-search-path-use-another-name"><code>PATH</code> is
the shell search path. Use another name.</h2>
<h3 id="problematic-code">Problematic code:</h3>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb1"><pre class="sourceCode sh"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb1-1"><a href="SC2123.html#cb1-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">PATH</span><span class="op">=</span>/my/dir</span>
<span id="cb1-2"><a href="SC2123.html#cb1-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">cat</span> <span class="st">&quot;</span><span class="va">$PATH</span><span class="st">/myfile&quot;</span></span></code></pre></div>
<h3 id="correct-code">Correct code:</h3>
<p>Good practice: always use lowercase for unexported variables.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb2"><pre class="sourceCode sh"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb2-1"><a href="SC2123.html#cb2-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">path</span><span class="op">=</span>/my/dir</span>
<span id="cb2-2"><a href="SC2123.html#cb2-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">cat</span> <span class="st">&quot;</span><span class="va">$path</span><span class="st">/myfile&quot;</span></span></code></pre></div>
<p>Bad practice: use another uppercase name.</p>
<div class="sourceCode" id="cb3"><pre class="sourceCode sh"><code class="sourceCode bash"><span id="cb3-1"><a href="SC2123.html#cb3-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="va">MYPATH</span><span class="op">=</span>/my/dir</span>
<span id="cb3-2"><a href="SC2123.html#cb3-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">cat</span> <span class="st">&quot;</span><span class="va">$MYPATH</span><span class="st">/myfile&quot;</span></span></code></pre></div>
<h3 id="rationale">Rationale:</h3>
<p><code>PATH</code> is where the shell looks for the commands it
executes. By inadvertently overwriting it, the shell will be unable to
find commands (like <code>cat</code> in this case).</p>
<p>You get this warning when ShellCheck suspects that you didn't meant
to overwrite it (because it's a single path with no path
separators).</p>
<p>Best shell scripting practice is to always use lowercase variable
names to avoid accidentally overwriting exported and internal
variables.</p>
<h3 id="exceptions">Exceptions</h3>
<p>If you're aware of the above and really do want to set your shell
search path to <code>/my/dir</code>, you can ignore this warning.</p>
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